Fiscal Sponsor Organizations

  • 1.  Capital campaigns?

    Posted 10-30-2025 19:44

    We periodically get requests to be a fiscal sponsor for a capital campaign. Generally it's a public/private partnership that needs to raise some private funds, or when a new nonprofit is waiting for nonprofit status. Because what is required of the fiscal sponsor is so little (they are not doing programming, just raising money), and the goal is to raise and keep as much as possible, groups balk at our 7-9% cost share. They generally end up using another nonprofit that will charge them less. I’m curious if this is something other fiscal sponsors have discussed, and if you have a different cost structure for this case? I’ll be going to the conference and asking around about this there, but I also wanted to post this question here.



  • 2.  RE: Capital campaigns?

    Posted 10-31-2025 00:25
    Hey, Lisa! I’m excited for next week!

    We have definitely negotiated the admin cost in previous years, and I could see us negotiating for a capital campaign where no programming is occurring. I’m not sure (transparently) how the % is then decided (maybe Oliver will chime in or we can chat with him at NNFS).

    I’ll also say that having a step down admin cost is also helpful in these situations (where the % decreases with dollars raised). I don’t remember your admin cost structure, so you may already be doing this!


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